Practice was definitely sloppy this morning, it seems the backup centers are really struggling with the shotgun snap and in keeping pressure out of the backfield. There were numerous times when penetration up the middle led to additional fumbles because the backs were being hit at the same time as the handoffs. A few other thoughts are below:
• I thought Vad had better command of the offense than last year and is showing improvement on his pitch/keep reads. He reeled off a 60+ yard run and another for probably 30-40 yards in addition to having some good last minute pitches that led to decent gains. That being said, he started real slow and along with Thomas had some fumbles, mostly on snaps
• Vad completed a couple of crossing routes to A-Backs for decent gains (Andrews , Days, Bostic?) and had a great rollout to the left hitting Bostic on a deep flag pattern for about 40-50 yards in the air on a terrific throw. He also made a terrible decision on a throw back across his body rolling to his right as he was about to get to the sideline that was intercepted and returned for a TD by Milton
• On the drive after his INT, Milton made a good play on a deep ball thrown to Summers breaking it up in the end zone. I can’t recall one pass completion to a WR today
• Laskey broke a long one for about 60 yards and seems a little quicker or more aggressive than last season
• Justin Thomas was solid and played a little more with the 1’s than he did last week. At one point after Vad had fumbled two times in a short period Johnson put Thomas in to replace Vad with the 1’s. He broke off a few good runs but nothing of note in the passing game besides showing escapability in the pocket and extending plays
• Matt Connors had a really good scrimmage with a couple of long runs with the 2’s and 3’s.
• Snoddy played a fair amount with the 2’s and a little with the 1’s and had a few decent runs between 10-20 yards and a longer one for about 30. Showed a little more toughness in the middle than I had seen previously. His speed is noticeable and on the longer run he was tripped up by the safety by his ankles otherwise he would have had a 70 yard TD.
• Dennis Andrews was really impressive today. He broke off 3 long runs from the ‘Diamond’ formation (QB in pistol flanked by 2 AB’s and a BB behind the QB) where they do an inside handoff on a read option play including some good moves and broken tackles in the open field. He also had a good catch on a crossing pattern
• On Defense, Milton had a couple of big plays and Harrell, Attaochu, Lynn Griffin all came up with some big hits. Gotsis was solid and he and Cummings had a couple of TFL, getting to the QB during the mesh. Hard to get a read on the D-Line with injuries on O-Line but they were getting a strong push up the middle most of the scrimmage and Attaochu came up with good pressure on a few occasions.
• Perkins ran with the 3’s, but is clearly behind Sims, Laskey, Snoddy and he appeared to be behind Connors as well (may be b/c he is working back from injury). He had a couple of runs between 5-15 yards, but nothing explosive.
• Kickers looked good again, I believe they hit all of their attempts including a couple over 40.
• Noble was carted off the field, knee injury perhaps?